76 DANGER OF PITFALLS. 



the forests they frequently fell in, and were of course left to their fate, as 

 their legs or ribs were more often broken than not. The Commissariat and 

 Forest Departments soon gave up the pit plan; but the Maharajah required a 

 few elephants annually, and even though ten or twenty were killed for every 

 one that lived, it was his only method of procuring them. As the forests were 

 full of herds, it did not matter from an economic point how many were killed. 

 I have heard of four elephants falling into one pit together, and, strange to 

 say, three survived on this occasion, probably from having the fourth as a 

 cushion at the bottom : this one was trampled to death, and almost out of 

 all shape. 



The pits were often arranged with great art by the hunters, an open one 

 being perhaps left in view, in avoiding which an elephant would fall into a 

 covered one alongside ; or several were dug in close proximity, into which 

 others might fall when fleeing in terror at the bellow of fright which the 

 first gave on finding the earth sinking under him. On one occasion I was 

 riding through a strange part of the Billiga-rungun hills, when, coming to a 

 felled tree, I turned my pony aside to go round it. One of the Shdlagas 

 with me fortunately stopped me, just in time, by screaming " Koppoo ! kop- 

 poo ! " (pit, pit) — and almost under my pony's nose I saw a hole through 

 the covering caused by the falling of a deer into the pit. The tree had been 

 felled with the object of making the elephants go round it, as I had done. 



Since the Maharajah's death the pit system in Mysore has happily been 

 given up. The atrocious cruelties to which elephants were subjected by it 

 are too horrible to think of. 



NOOSING FROM TRAINED ELEPHANTS BACKS. 



This is the most spirited and exciting, though by no means advanta- 

 geous, manner of hunting the wild elephant. It is practised in parts of 

 Bengal and Nepaul, but is unknown in Southern India. It is far from an 

 economic method, as the wear and tear of the tame elephants engaged is 

 very great, nor can full-sized wild ones be captured by it. I have never 

 myself seen a hunt by this method, but I have had men in my employ who 

 were adepts at it. It is conducted as follows : Three or four fast tame 

 elephants are equipped with a rope each ; at one end is a noose, the other is 

 girthed securely round their bodies ; on some the noose is to the near side, 

 on the others to the off. Each elephant has three riders — the mahout on its 

 neck to guide it ; the nooser kneeling on a small pad on its back, holding 

 the open noose in his hands ; and a driver seated near the root of its tail, 

 whose duty it is to hammer it unmercifully in the region of the os coccygis 



